Crafting bags and the mats economy

AlnilamE · May 2016

Dear fellow ESO hoarders/gatherers,

I have been thinking about the effect the crafting bags will have on the economy of crafting materials and I would like to hear your thoughts.

If you are like me and you get your hirelings every day as well as have a hard time passing up a harvest node even if it is a mushroom, you probably have accumulated many stacks of crafting materials over the course of your game play. You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff, and when you realized you had 7 stacks of Embroidery, you decided you were going to slowly start selling it to bring this down to a more reasonable number (and maybe let that alt go into the world sometimes to play).

However, the advent of crafting bags makes this unnecessary. We will have all the room we want, and we won't have to worry that Leather is occupying 3 inventory slots when we'll never need more than one stack at a time anyway.

So if those of us who sell crafting materials to get rid of stuff/free inventory space, how will the removal of that necessity affect the market? Will prices go up? Will it be harder to find certain items for sale? What do you think?

MissBizz · May 2016

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

There actually was a thread on this a couple weeks ago. I think in the end many of the mats will stay about the same price. There are a lot of folks who enjoy the game by just playing the market. Sure, I'll hoard like I normally do, but once all my characters are through the 1-50 phase I would still sell off mats. Sure inventory isn't an issue, but it will be nicer not have to scroll through as much stuff. Even though folks will be able to hoard items, it doesn't always mean they will. At some point you may need a little extra gold. Oh, plus there will be tons of people who are not subscribed and will still be selling mats to make room!

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

Khenarthi · May 2016

I am curious to see what happens, too, but bear in mind that many people won't get crafting bags (only the subscribers will have them).

As for me, I usually fill my guild store slots with extra recipes and the occasional set gear; crafting mats I give freely or sell cheap to guildies who ask for help in guild chat - so I won't really see a lot of changes to my habits.

NewBlacksmurf · May 2016

Honestly crafting bags with the VR to CP conversion is the impact. While the mass of what you hold will all of a sudden be pointless unless it's level 45 or lower or vr15-16 materials I doubt the prices will drop for high end but I don't foresee prices holding up for lower stuff.

Initially many mats will free up space but I think due to how you pull mats out to sale them, because you can't go directly from a crafting bag to vendor it, mats will just sit in this void

phaneub17_ESO · May 2016

I'm vendoring all my crafting mats from V1 to V8 fusion.

AlnilamE · May 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

Well, I may not be ready to publicly admit the extent of my hoarding problem. :-P

MissBizz wrote: »

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I'm vendoring all my crafting mats from V1 to V8 fusion.

Yeah, they should have just streamlined the whole 1-140 CP group of mats into 1 or 2, since I think people will get 140 CP really quickly on a new account.

I've gone and vendored a bunch of mats that MM told me would sell for less than 6g a piece more than once. I wish trait stones and style stones had a vendor value of 1g because I hate just destroying them. :-)

newtinmpls · May 2016

AlnilamE wrote: »

you realized you had 7 stacks of Embroidery

Never... never in all my hoarding 2 account life have I had anywhere NEAR 7 stacks of embroidery.

SeptimusDova · May 2016

Will we get an achievement if we fill the bag all the way up? Khajiit find so many of khajiits lost things all over Nirn!!This one never knew that so much stuff was misplaced.

Fruitmass · May 2016

newtinmpls wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

you realized you had 7 stacks of Embroidery

Never... never in all my hoarding 2 account life have I had anywhere NEAR 7 stacks of embroidery.

I have but I'm an incurable packrat

. I pick up and hold on to just about anything that catches my fancy (even if it has no practical use) Had to force myself to adopt a policy lately for the sake of inventory management (and my poor mule's back) that I'll only hold on to three stacks of upgrade mats for personal use and sell the rest.

Anyway, my major worry is that we're going to see nerfs to drop rates for the good stuff like gold upgrade materials as a way to counterbalance people stockpiling the stuff. Hope that won't happen. Fingers crossed.

Ourorboros · May 2016

I don't think crafting bags will have any impact on markets. The impact will come from going instantly from level 50 to level 160 due to VR removal, resulting in no crafting use for all those mat levels between. Only brand new players will need these mats. Who knows if everyone will dump those or not. Even if they get dumped and become rare, it's hard to say if they will also increase in price. It's not like the nodes will disappear. They may become a niche market for new players who can't be bothered to harvest. The nice thing about crafting bags is that there is no reason not to just hang onto these mats and see which way the wind blows.

CokeVoAYCE · May 2016

v1-v15 gear/mats are becoming useless, lol.

newtinmpls · May 2016

@Fruitmass admitted to having 7 stacks of embroidery....

Fruitmass wrote: »

I have but I'm an incurable packrat . I pick up and hold on to just about anything that catches my fancy (even if it has no practical use)

Same here, and I don't sell, I decon. Still never got that high. Just wow.

However on the fancy catching front -

My bosmer has her lucky bag of bronzed unicorns

My goblin (bosmer) has her Queen's Eye figurines, her lucky Two-Moons key, a really nifty kit to curse undead ... and a few other things.

My Orsimer battlemage has the torchbug jar he uses on quiet night with his wife.

.

Korah_Eaglecry · May 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

There actually was a thread on this a couple weeks ago. I think in the end many of the mats will stay about the same price. There are a lot of folks who enjoy the game by just playing the market. Sure, I'll hoard like I normally do, but once all my characters are through the 1-50 phase I would still sell off mats. Sure inventory isn't an issue, but it will be nicer not have to scroll through as much stuff. Even though folks will be able to hoard items, it doesn't always mean they will. At some point you may need a little extra gold. Oh, plus there will be tons of people who are not subscribed and will still be selling mats to make room!

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

VR1-8 mats will eventually bounce back. Theyll nose dive at first but with every new DLC more old players and new will pop back in or for the first time. Anyone sticking around that doesnt have any CP 160 characters will need to make that climb. The slower they are the more likely they are to need them more.

I say give it til Q3 DLC and they should suddenly start being needed again.

Fruitmass · May 2016

@newtinmpls I personally like collect the good luck charms like the neried's foot, the horse shoes, tiger claw and the pocket goblin (personal favorite that one). Figure I can use all the luck I can get

.

Lately been thinking of trying to collect all the different charms as my own personal project while I work on finishing the black market mogul achievement for a second time.

newtinmpls · May 2016

Man....

Broken Branch Toothmaul sooo wants the "pocket goblin"

Still haven't found it. A friend tried to mail it to me, but apparently even if you launder it, it's bound.

/pout

Lysette · May 2016

My guess, at first it will lead to a shortage in supply until the crafting bags are stocked to a certain point. But after some time supply and demand will balance out again, because it does not make sense to hoard a lot more than will be used - and once that threshold is reached, people will start to sell off those mats, which they have in abundance.

Edit: at first some will stock their crafting bags with the intention to unsub again, when it is filled well enough for some time. So these kind of players will most likely not sell anything in the first month(s) after DB release.

newtinmpls · May 2016

Lysette wrote: »

My guess, at first it will lead to a shortage in supply until the crafting bags are stocked to a certain point. But after some time supply and demand will balance out again, because it does not make sense to hoard a lot more than will be used - and once that threshold is reached, people will start to sell off those mats, which they have in abundance.

Edit: at first some will stock their crafting bags with the intention to unsub again, when it is filled well enough for some time. So these kind of players will most likely not sell anything in the first month(s) after DB release.

Err those of us who are hoarders won't be selling anything when we reach "enough" because we are way beyond sense to begin with.

As for the "intent to unsub" folks, my understanding is that the nigh-infinite stacks in-bag will not be splittable once you un-sub so they may be stuck having full character bags from not being able to breakup a stack of 1200 nightwood.

Lysette · May 2016

newtinmpls wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

My guess, at first it will lead to a shortage in supply until the crafting bags are stocked to a certain point. But after some time supply and demand will balance out again, because it does not make sense to hoard a lot more than will be used - and once that threshold is reached, people will start to sell off those mats, which they have in abundance.

Edit: at first some will stock their crafting bags with the intention to unsub again, when it is filled well enough for some time. So these kind of players will most likely not sell anything in the first month(s) after DB release.

Err those of us who are hoarders won't be selling anything when we reach "enough" because we are way beyond sense to begin with.

As for the "intent to unsub" folks, my understanding is that the nigh-infinite stacks in-bag will not be splittable once you un-sub so they may be stuck having full character bags from not being able to breakup a stack of 1200 nightwood.

Ah, I see, clever move :-)

Edit:. but maybe it is just a stack of 200, which is auto-splitted with a single access move - with stack sizes in the crafting bag of up to 4.2 billion items this would be reasonable. I have not seen a crafting bag yet, was not on the PTS, so this is just a guess. Not that I would believe that anyone can get to a stack size of 4.2 billion items - alone the process of picking those mats would take about 665.5 years for just one stack. So even with crazy people, who would pick 16hrs/day, this would require about 1000 man-years for one complete stack.

newtinmpls · May 2016

AlnilamE wrote: »

I wish trait stones and style stones had a vendor value of 1g because I hate just destroying them. :-)

I wait till I have over 200, then I break off a stack of 25 or so, and sell them for 50 or 75.

Oddly enough, they usually sell.

Which I did not really "get" till I started also playing on EU, and these were the peeps with no minion (can't figure out how to put it on both servers) no known friends, so I craft stuff with traits and sell them for 100. I am buying up style and other stones all the time there.

starkerealm · May 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

There actually was a thread on this a couple weeks ago. I think in the end many of the mats will stay about the same price. There are a lot of folks who enjoy the game by just playing the market. Sure, I'll hoard like I normally do, but once all my characters are through the 1-50 phase I would still sell off mats. Sure inventory isn't an issue, but it will be nicer not have to scroll through as much stuff. Even though folks will be able to hoard items, it doesn't always mean they will. At some point you may need a little extra gold. Oh, plus there will be tons of people who are not subscribed and will still be selling mats to make room!

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

Or 6.

Honestly looking forward to getting my DK back tomorrow.

Morimizo · May 2016

AlnilamE wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

Well, I may not be ready to publicly admit the extent of my hoarding problem. :-P

MissBizz wrote: »

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I'm vendoring all my crafting mats from V1 to V8 fusion.

Yeah, they should have just streamlined the whole 1-140 CP group of mats into 1 or 2, since I think people will get 140 CP really quickly on a new account.

I've gone and vendored a bunch of mats that MM told me would sell for less than 6g a piece more than once. I wish trait stones and style stones had a vendor value of 1g because I hate just destroying them. :-)

As the cursor hovered between the 201st Emerald, Sapphire, and Ruby, I thought, "Am I really going to do this?" They're worth ZERO to the NPC and maybe 1 or 2 if you bundle a bunch together in the guild store?

It just isn't right. At all.

I should at least be able to toss a few dozen on the ground to make a chasing guard slip and fall on his bum.

He richly deserves it.

And it wasn't me.

Really.

Vaoh · May 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

There actually was a thread on this a couple weeks ago. I think in the end many of the mats will stay about the same price. There are a lot of folks who enjoy the game by just playing the market. Sure, I'll hoard like I normally do, but once all my characters are through the 1-50 phase I would still sell off mats. Sure inventory isn't an issue, but it will be nicer not have to scroll through as much stuff. Even though folks will be able to hoard items, it doesn't always mean they will. At some point you may need a little extra gold. Oh, plus there will be tons of people who are not subscribed and will still be selling mats to make room!

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

Try 6 characters......

ausmack2014 · May 2016

You need to remember that not everyone is a subscriber and I believe the crafting storage is only available ESO Plus members? So it may not impact as much as you would think.

Jimbullbee85 · May 2016

My theory is that the economy will be boosted. Most of my bank space is used for crafting materials so I need to keep all my monster sets, alternative gear and treasure maps on my characters. With the bag I'd have enough space in the bank for all of these and a much lighter personal inventory which will allow me to carry more gear to the trader or crafting stations between dungeons. In a dungeon I'm often having to prioritise what loot I'm picking up. Not for long. Bigger inventories means more loot, more for sale and reduction in price.

It could go the other way though. If crafters are holding onto materials instead of selling them, then perhaps the prices would go up.

ContraTempo · May 2016

The three effects the bag had on my play were:
1. About 15% more gaming time that use to be spent returning to town, going in and out of the bank, swapping stuff between toons. Even with a cool addon to do most of the actual swapping, there was still a lot of logging on, logging off.
2. I did not bother to give armoring/clothing, alchemy, enchanting, and provisioning to different characters. On the contrary, I could have all my crafting on one character because it is not necessary to mule the mats. Thus I am only burning skill points for one and the others can all be anything I want.
3. I stopped trying to sell mats. Not that sales tend to work on PTS but I just stopped thinking that way.
4. I gathered ALL THE THINGS! Every pumpkin, water skin, cast off sword, shoe, TA, bit of charcoal, or nirnroot I passed went right into my bag.
5. I could play much longer between town runs. Especially when I could find a vendor on the road for repairs and junk sales. I really only had to go back when I filled my inventory (200 slots) with armor, weapons, glyphs, etc destined for decon or -- if set items -- guild store sales.

I do expect a lot of different effects on the economy and the guilds. Potency runes will top out at what a vendor sells them for (because why would you pay more in a guild store?). Farming other runes will be easier so we should see those prices drop. Armor sets will be more available and will drop in price, except for best sets at top level. Availability of mats will drop sharply as ESO+ no longer have to do any inventory management on mats. Provisions supplies will be harder to find/farm because many people will just take all the stuff they use to leave. OTOH, I think availability of food and drink in the guild stores will rise and prices will fall because people will be looting more provisioning mats. This may hold true for alchemy as well but to a lesser degree. Glyphs will be harder to buy below top level

My best guess is something of a recession and greatly reduced availability (with higher prices) for mats in the guild stores. But with so many different and sometimes contradictory effects, I can only guess.

Whiphid · May 2016

I'm more interested in the effect that this has on guild banks. Really doesn't seem to be any point in "clearing out your inventory". Hopefully the guildies that seem to happily share will still be sharing when they get their bags (and not clear out the bank)

Duiwel · May 2016

OP the amount of Bloodstone, Steel and Rawhide I have is unreal ( probably 10 stacks of Rawhide & Steel easily )

Which I will never use anymore , Should have sold it back in 2014

RIP hoarding ^^

Duiwel · May 2016

Doncellius wrote: »

MissBizz wrote: »

" You may even have a character or two that simply hold extra stacks of stuff"

Try 3 or 4

There actually was a thread on this a couple weeks ago. I think in the end many of the mats will stay about the same price. There are a lot of folks who enjoy the game by just playing the market. Sure, I'll hoard like I normally do, but once all my characters are through the 1-50 phase I would still sell off mats. Sure inventory isn't an issue, but it will be nicer not have to scroll through as much stuff. Even though folks will be able to hoard items, it doesn't always mean they will. At some point you may need a little extra gold. Oh, plus there will be tons of people who are not subscribed and will still be selling mats to make room!

As for VR1-VR8 mats though? I think that's a different issue entirely and I'm not sure which way the market will go on those.

Try 6 characters......

Try 3 characters AND a second account ( 8 chars + bank )

Mettaricana · May 2016

I assume hoarders not selling will let the farmers actually make a profit once the supply dries a bit atleast rubedite won't be practically free

AlnilamE · May 2016

ContraTempo wrote: »

The three effects the bag had on my play were:
1. About 15% more gaming time that use to be spent returning to town, going in and out of the bank, swapping stuff between toons. Even with a cool addon to do most of the actual swapping, there was still a lot of logging on, logging off.
2. I did not bother to give armoring/clothing, alchemy, enchanting, and provisioning to different characters. On the contrary, I could have all my crafting on one character because it is not necessary to mule the mats. Thus I am only burning skill points for one and the others can all be anything I want.
3. I stopped trying to sell mats. Not that sales tend to work on PTS but I just stopped thinking that way.
4. I gathered ALL THE THINGS! Every pumpkin, water skin, cast off sword, shoe, TA, bit of charcoal, or nirnroot I passed went right into my bag.
5. I could play much longer between town runs. Especially when I could find a vendor on the road for repairs and junk sales. I really only had to go back when I filled my inventory (200 slots) with armor, weapons, glyphs, etc destined for decon or -- if set items -- guild store sales.

I do expect a lot of different effects on the economy and the guilds. Potency runes will top out at what a vendor sells them for (because why would you pay more in a guild store?). Farming other runes will be easier so we should see those prices drop. Armor sets will be more available and will drop in price, except for best sets at top level. Availability of mats will drop sharply as ESO+ no longer have to do any inventory management on mats. Provisions supplies will be harder to find/farm because many people will just take all the stuff they use to leave. OTOH, I think availability of food and drink in the guild stores will rise and prices will fall because people will be looting more provisioning mats. This may hold true for alchemy as well but to a lesser degree. Glyphs will be harder to buy below top level

My best guess is something of a recession and greatly reduced availability (with higher prices) for mats in the guild stores. But with so many different and sometimes contradictory effects, I can only guess.

Yeah, I'm going to GATHER ALL THE THINGS as well. Right now, I mostly pass up on provisioning mats and shrooms because of inventory space, but that will change. I'm also excited that getting hirelings will be as simple as logging in to the character and retrieving the mail. Right now, I cycle through my 7 characters and then go to the two that actually hold the stuff (enchanting/provisioning for one and BS/WW/Clothier for the other) and grab all the mail.

Remember that provisioning items are mostly instanced to the player, so if you loot a barrel and I loot the same barrel right after, you haven't actually taken "my" loot.

Preyfar · May 2016

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

[
VR1-8 mats will eventually bounce back. Theyll nose dive at first but with every new DLC more old players and new will pop back in or for the first time. Anyone sticking around that doesnt have any CP 160 characters will need to make that climb. The slower they are the more likely they are to need them more.

I say give it til Q3 DLC and they should suddenly start being needed again.

I don't see that happening. There won't be any need for them for vet characters as the moment they hit 50 they'll be at max level, and go straight Rubedite. The only possible need could be for leveling crafting, but even then, deconning dropped items would probably be faster.